Failures and Triumphs

Little Fishies

The closest to food poisoning I have ever had was entirely my own fault. I was about fifteen at the beach with my cousins and my younger cousin Jimmy caught a minnow in a net with his friends. Already an adventurous eater, but more of a kid who just wanted to gross out his family and look cool in front of his younger cousin, I offered to swallow the minnow live. This got all of his friends excited and a half dozen nine year old boys stood around as I grabbed the little guy by the tail, lifted my head, opened my mouth, and dropped the minnow in. I could feel it squirm the majority of the way down and I was king of the nine year olds for the day.

The next morning, not so much. I made sure to be within a few steps of the bathroom for the majority of the day. My mom said it must have been something I ate the previous day, but no one else felt sick. Then it hit me, it was the minnow. Never did that again, in that form. I would eat minnows, just under more sanitary and smarter conditions.

At the fish market they always have minnows, called spearing by them, but in reality it is mostly minnows, a hand full of other small fish species, and a shrimp or two. Before I had bought them and friend them turning them into crunch little whole fish poppers. This time though I had other plans.

I grabbed the food processor and threw a handful in pulverizing the little guys into a vial looking fish dark gray paste. Looked and smelled chum, because well it was. I then mixed in bread crumbs, scallion, eggs, and some seasoning and hit the frying pan with them making fish cakes. Then I made a relish of mayo, pickles, mustard, and tomatoes.

Though not the prettiest looking concoction they surprised me and were actually really good. The color was the more off putting part of it. Other than that delicious. This was just an appetizer though I had more fish to fry. I figured I could just toss them into a stir fry like anything else. This turned out to not be entirely true. They cooked quickly but fell apart as they collided with the other ingredients leaving me with fragments of decapitated fish scattered throughout the plate.

This did make eating a bit less painful though. The heads are loaded with sharp bone fragments and scales so I could easily just pick them all out now. I did however end up with a fish scale stuck in my gum for about a week that I just could not get out since it was in such a weird spot. Anyways, the fish did not taste that great in the stir fry. Way to fishy.